We’re on the map!

Bladen County was once becoming famous and noteworthy because it was on the grow, on the cutting edge of technology, job recruiting innovations, economic development, not to mention huge stars onstage.

How things have changed in just a short time.

The community crisis in Bladen County has drawn newspaper, magazine and television outlets to our front door and the media is putting us all on the map.

No longer for our transparency, our leadership abilities, our small-town quaintness or our progressiveness, but for all the wrong reasons.

Folks, we are on the map for a lingering and festering feud that had been poorly covered up from the public… until last October. Bladen Online posted https://bladenonline.com/open-letter-town-of-elizabethtown-shuts-down-bladen-county-and-bbai-growth/ The Border Belt Independent followed suit in November with both online and Instagram posts https://www.instagram.com/borderbeltindependent/p/DGzNRQ9MK8A/ The Business North Carolina Magazine caught wind of the fireworks and has published twice since the beginning of the year https://businessnc.com/siler-city-a-lionized-piedmont-town-embraces-transformational-change-while-grasping-to-retain-its-charm-2/ WECT-News 6 then published and updated their story April 17 ( https://www.wect.com/2025/04/17/bladen-county-sues-town-elizabethtown-feud-over-industrial-park-project-escalates/ The Bladen Journal has also tried to keep the community updated as to the status.

For something that the town keeps saying “will go away” – there is no light seen at the end of a very dark tunnel that leaders have taken us into.

According to the Business North Carolina (BNC) magazine article, “’We’re going to come out on the end and fix this, and we’re all going to get back on each other’s Christmas cards lists,’ Rideout says.”

It seems that our town manager has been saying and promising many things lately – but not to the town or concerning the circumstances, the lawsuits and the changes that have been made that will affect the entire county.

Journalist Bill Holden III said in his article in BNC, “Rideout, a 30-year military veteran, did meet with Heustess last year. At that confab, Heustess says Rideout’s “choice words were, on multiple occasions, ‘stay the [expletive] out of it. Rideout admits that “the colonel in me came out” during their talk.”

Not a very professional way to deal with things – and then using the military as an excuse for such behavior is not… an acceptable excuse. And of course, now it is out there for all the world to see what kind of “professionals” we have at the helm.

Another damning piece of evidence is a non-statement from town officials as posted by WECT where they said, “The newest suit is tied to a March 2023 letter from Mayor Campbell to Bladen County Commissioners, asking for $100,000 in county funds to help pay for the Master Plan And Survey phase of the town’s Live, Work, Play Project. Elizabethtown’s Town Manager, Dane Rideout, declined to comment. A comment request from Mayor Sylvia Campbell wasn’t returned.”

Further, if you examine the picture posted by WECT you will see a photo of the housing plans for the residential homes to be built in the residential area of the Elizabethtown Industrial Park. You will notice that the plans have “Devane Builders” stamped on those plans. Interesting since Devane Builders has nothing to do with the building of the proposed homes.

Last week the gauntlet was thrown down to come face to face in a town hall meeting with both factions. If there is truly nothing to hide, then bring your lawyers – bring your board members and bring your documentation.

Again… Bladen County is looking for answers from BOTH sides. We need to come off the media’s radar and off the map for the wrong reasons to end this thing. You can either turn this around or you can watch it fester and decay until people won’t come here – and the ones who ARE here will go elsewhere.